A highly desired attribute of many consumer products is that they include fragrances which demonstrate long-lasting effect e.g. following application to a surface. Several approaches have been used to deliver this property from a fragrance. These include, for example, the inclusion of a high boiling, low odour, fixative material to extend fragrance lifetime as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,172,037, or the encapsulation of fragrance inside capsules which rupture or degrade following application to a surface as described in EP 0397246. Both of these approaches, however, may add to the cost of the fragrance and/or may result in a composition which is unsuitable for use in a variety of consumer products, possibly requiring further developmental work.
One alternative approach, as described in WO97/30689 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,154, lies in the formulation of perfumes that provide a long lasting aesthetic benefit with a minimum amount of material. These perfumes have been described as ‘enduring perfumes’. Enduring perfumes comprise at least about 70% of perfume ingredients with relatively high boiling points (i.e. at least about 250° C.) and hydrophobicities (i.e. a ClogP of at least about 3.0). Such perfume compositions may however exhibit odour characteristics which are influenced by the odour properties of the substantial quantities of enduring perfume ingredients in the perfume compositions.
EP 0003172, EP 0005618, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,304,679, 4,322,308, 4,278,658, 4,134,838, 4,288,341, 4,289,641 and 4,906,454 all describe perfume compositions which exhibit a deodorant action, either when applied to human skin using a cosmetically acceptable vehicle or when included in a detergent product or fabric conditioning product used in laundering of textiles. EP 0147191 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,663,068 describe deodorant perfume compositions which are stable in the presence of bleaching materials. A difficulty with these perfume compositions is that they generally include appreciable quantities of relatively high molecular weight perfume components which help to extend the effective lifetime of deodorant action following product application, but which tend to have less perfume impact and to exhibit odour characteristics which span a finite range.
The above described limitations of the perfume compositions of the prior art represent a compromise between long term deodorant efficacy and optimal hedonic performance. This compromise is particularly significant for perfumes characterised by “light notes” i.e. odour notes which are delicate, are not cloying and may in fact be fleeting, and dominated by what are known within the perfume industry as top-notes. By this is meant the odour notes which are detected during the first stages of perfume evaporation from a surface such as skin, and which typically, but not necessarily, tend to arise from volatile materials. Volatile materials will by their very nature evaporate faster than other perfume components and are not expected to contribute significantly to effective long term deodorant activity following application to surfaces such as skin or fabric.
The present invention concerns novel perfume compositions, particularly perfume compositions which may be described as light i.e. of delicate odour and non-enduring, yet demonstrate effective deodorant longevity.